


you dawned upon me

by shamecorner



Series: the white wolf and her bard [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, F/F, Female Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Female Jaskier | Dandelion, First Time, Genderbending, Genderswap, Pining, Secret Identity, That But Lesbians, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:09:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamecorner/pseuds/shamecorner
Summary: Jaskier heard tales that the Path of a witcher is solitary, and Geralt does nothing to discourage them. He is obviously unused to companionship. His body is geometric with tension: his shoulders held in a rigid line, his jaw clenched at a harsh angle. He hasn’t yet doffed a single scrap of his armor, even though it’s well past dark and the bedrolls have been unpacked. Jaskier’s bodice is discarded, her blouse loose and untucked over her breeches. The plunging neckline hasn’t caught Geralt’s eye once—and she’s been paying attention, unsure if she’s driven by curiosity or hope.He’s almost finished with the pheasant, sucking at the marrow, a sheen of grease over his lips and chin.Well, maybe,she thinks.I’ve fucked worse.Julia Pankratz de Lettenhove meets a witcher. The witcher is hiding something.(Or: Geralt and Jaskier, but lesbians.)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: the white wolf and her bard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876882
Comments: 66
Kudos: 492





	you dawned upon me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm stealing all the Geraskier tropes and twisting them with my devious little dyke hands, and nobody can stop me. 
> 
> Based largely on the characterizations from the Netflix show. Pulls bits and pieces from book and game canon.
> 
> This story is told in Jaskier's POV. Jaskier is a cis bisexual woman. Geralt is AFAB, spends the first half of the story presenting as a man, and ends the story presenting as a woman-aligned person who uses a different name and she/her pronouns (in private). This was written with a lesbian perspective in mind, particularly a butch one, though some elements overlap with transmasculinity. Please see the end notes for more detail if you think you may find discussion of passing/dysphoria/gender nonconformity to be triggering.
> 
> Title is from the song Marrow by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.

There’s something in the tone of the lute—a haunting, ethereal quality that adds a bittersweet edge to every note. Like the touch of salt in a pastry. Jaskier strums, mesmerized by the flicker of firelight across the humming strings. At least Filavandrel’s gift has made this difficult day worthwhile.

A loud snap of bone pierces the melody.

Jaskier jolts upright, finding—to her horror—that Geralt has pulled one of two half-cooked pheasants from the fire and crunched clean through its slick, pink torso.

“Sweet, merciful gods,” she says, “what the _hell_ are you doing?”

He mumbles a response through his full mouth. “Was hungry.”

“That’s _vile_. Won’t you get sick?”

Geralt shakes his head, too busy gutting the bird with his teeth to speak.

Jaskier rests her chin on her hand. A mix of fascination and revulsion hooks her gaze to Geralt, across the fire, ripping raw meat with his fingers.

“You know,” she says, tapping an absentminded rhythm into her cheek, “it’ll take a lot more than bad manners to scare me off. Act as feral as you want—you’re stuck with me, Witcher.”

For a moment, his eyes narrow, but his face goes back to blank within the space of a heartbeat.

Jaskier heard tales that the Path of a witcher is solitary, and Geralt does nothing to discourage them. He is obviously unused to companionship. His body is geometric with tension: his shoulders held in a rigid line, his jaw clenched at a harsh angle. He hasn’t yet doffed a single scrap of his armor, even though it’s well past dark and the bedrolls have been unpacked. Jaskier’s bodice is discarded, her blouse loose and untucked over her breeches. The plunging neckline hasn’t caught Geralt’s eye once—and she’s been paying attention, unsure if she’s driven by curiosity or hope. 

He’s almost finished with the pheasant, sucking at the marrow, a sheen of grease over his lips and chin.

_Well, maybe_ , she thinks. _I’ve fucked worse_.

Jaskier falls asleep watching the black silhouette of Geralt hunched over the fire. He barely moves. She pictures him as a cat-eyed gargoyle, perched against a stone relief of elves and devils and songbirds, before the image dissolves.

—

Jaskier once asked if witchers ever carry shields. Geralt denied it. But it’s a lie: his is a thick, petrified thing built from intentional unpleasantness. He wears hoods often, so that his yellow eyes gleam eerily against his shadowed face. When negotiating payment, he crushes his voice to gravel. Sometimes, he sets the shield aside, and Jaskier can see the glimmer of something else underneath. Those moments jingle in her brain like shiny coins.

For example: a full week of travel passes before Jaskier catches a glimpse of Geralt without his armor.

It’s early, the ground misted with heavy dewdrops. He’s rubbing a cloth between the silver studs on a bracer. The pre-dawn light is a dull, soft blue. Jaskier usually awakens after sunrise to a boot nudging her shoulder, so she savors this, peering through sleep-stiff eyelashes. 

The sleeves of his loose cotton shirt are rolled to the elbows. His flexing forearms are distracting, but she lingers on his face. Without the hooded cloak, he looks younger, the prominent straight nose and sharp ridge of his jaw contrasting with a rounded, hairless chin. His lips are full when they aren’t pinched into a frown. There’s a faint brush of white stubble over the shaved sides of his head, a contrast to the spill of long hair on top. Jaskier imagines the texture, fingertips tingling.

Eventually, the sun climbs above the horizon. Geralt straps himself into his armor, flips the hood over his head, and Jaskier acts as though she was just prodded awake when she feels the toe of his boot.

The odd beauty of his face shimmers in her mind, like a mirage over a hot road.

—

The rain is sudden and relentless, coming down in solid slabs, churning the dirt into a brown sludge. Jaskier’s skirt clings to her legs, her shoes squelching with each step. The color of Geralt’s hair darkens from silver to steel in the water, drooping over his face, slipping free from the leather tie. They both walk beside Roach, plodding wearily in the mud.

There is a village, thankfully, a scatter of houses that sprung up around an inn near the upcoming crossroads. The distant glitter of hearths and oil lamps pulls Jaskier through the gray dark. She fumbles for her purse, numb fingers counting each remaining coin.

They stumble over the threshold of the inn, trailing rivers of rainwater. Before Jaskier can speak, Geralt grumbles into a negotiation with the stern innkeeper, bargaining for Roach’s room and board. The wet-cat look doesn’t do him any favors, and the innkeeper scalps him. He passes over far too much coin for a single stall and some moldy hay.

Jaskier does her best to look like a teary-eyed maiden instead of someone who sings bawdy songs for money and drinks stinging, peppery vodka at a witcher’s campfire. It doesn’t work.

“If that’s all you’ve got,” says the innkeeper, gesturing at Jaskier’s meager purse, “I can give you the one bed, and that’s it.”

“Could you at least consider drawing us a bath?” Jaskier leans deliberately over the bartop. If the innocent maiden act wasn’t effective, she would try cleavage. “You don’t even have to heat it. We just need to wash the mud off our—everything.”

The innkeeper’s eyes flit down before darting sheepishly to the row of tables beyond Jaskier’s shoulder. “Fine. Go on, then, stop dripping all over my bar.”

Their room is barely wider than the length of Roach. The innkeeper and his gangly son wrestle the full tub inside, only just squeezing it beside the bed. It’s a smaller mattress than Jaskier had anticipated. The thought prompts a spark in her stomach, which is silly—she’ll just have to spread a bedroll on the floor.

As soon as the door closes, Jaskier kicks off her shoes. “Be a dear and Igni that, please,” she says, peeling off her soaked stockings.

Geralt looms in the corner. He looks like someone pissed in his beer.

“Sorry I’m asking you to use your very serious witcher magic to heat a tub,” scoffs Jaskier. “Maybe if you hadn’t handed over a mountain of gold to that stingy innkeep—”

He steps forward and makes the sign. For a moment, its shape is captured in steam on the water’s surface.

“Ah, thank you,” says Jaskier, primly, as she slips out of her dress.

Geralt’s expression darkens. His lip twitches.

“Yes, please, be scandalized. A naked woman, what horror.” Jaskier sinks into the water. The shock of heat on her chilled skin sends a ripple of goosebumps over her body.

Geralt freezes. Even his breathing is invisible; he could be carved from marble. Rolling droplets of rain fall from his armor, plinking into the bathwater.

Jaskier tips her head back, letting the warm water seep over her shoulders. There’s a slight thrill in this—a miniscule tightness to her inner thighs, a creep of heat in her cheeks. The inn’s walls provide a sense of intimacy, a privacy that’s impossible at a campsite.

“I’d bet,” she says, languid, “that this tub could fit the both of us, hm?”

It absolutely can’t, but the invitation must be clear.

Geralt remains frozen.

“This is a very one-sided conversation,” Jaskier says. “Are you just going to stand there all night? Guarding my virtue? That would be unnecessary.” She grins. “ _Very_ unnecessary.”

“I’m waiting for you to be done,” he says, flatly.

“And I’m inviting you to join me,” she counters. “It’s nice to share, Geralt.”

“Not going to happen,” he grits.

Another crude joke almost leaps from her tongue. She bites down on it before it escapes, catching the glint of cornered-rabbit fear in Geralt’s eyes. Jaskier swallows against a surge of guilt. Who could blame a traveling monster-slaying hermit for having boundaries?

Jaskier washes and hops out of the tub, toweling off with a renewed sense of propriety. She wrings her dress over a spare bucket and tugs it over her head. After a heartbeat’s pause, she scoots past Geralt to the door.

She stops in the threshold. “I’m going to dry myself off by the fire.” 

Jaskier inhales, but she can’t get the jagged pieces of an apology to fit together, and her next exhale is silent. She shuts the door, grabs a wobbly chair from the main room and scoots it close to the hearth. It’s not a very well-made or comfortable piece of furniture, but the fire radiates a blanketing heat, and her eyelids flutter shut.

Sensations swirl through the soupy murk of sleep. Careful hands tuck under her body, and her stomach swoops, like she’s missed a stair. Footsteps creak against wood. Linen rasps over her skin, and a weight presses along her back. 

She shuffles backwards, burrowing into the warmth. A huff of breath stirs the hair on her neck. An arm drapes across her waist. She knows, with the irrational certainty of a dream, that she is safe.

When Jaskier blinks awake, the bed is cold. She allows a clenched-fist moment of weakness before she drags herself into the morning. The mindless routine of dressing and packing supplies gives her an opportunity to focus, to numb the sting of rejection, to forget the half-remembered kindness that followed.

She finds Geralt murmuring to Roach in the stable. They’re back on the road before the sun clears the treeline.

—

“Did it have wings?” asks Geralt, arms folded.

“Nope.” The fisherman scratches the side of his sunburned nose.

“Claws? Webbed fingers?”

“No. I know what I saw, Witcher.”

Jaskier sips her beer, hoping it’ll overpower the fish-stink that sours her mouth. The man reeks of rot and brine.

He continues, knocking his cup against the table for emphasis. “It was a half-lady, half fish. A mermaid.”

“Merpeople are docile unless provoked.” Geralt slips into a bored monotone. “Why do you need me to kill a mermaid?”

“Kill her?” The fisherman rears back in his chair, hand to his chest, theatrically offended. “No, Witcher, I want you to net her! I’m going to make her my wife.”

Geralt blinks. He takes a drink, hiding his frown.

The fisherman rocks forward. His eyes bulge with half-crazed hope. “Well?”

Jaskier studies Geralt’s face. A muscle flexes in his jaw. This microexpression usually means that Geralt is about to leave, abruptly; she finishes her beer in one long gulp.

She’s right. He pushes back from the table, chair screeching across the floor, and stands.

“Witcher,” whines the fisherman, “when can I expect to meet my beloved?”

“I’ll net her after nightfall,” he says, adjusting the twin scabbards on his back. “Moonlight will draw her to the surface.”

Jaskier shoots a puzzled glance at Geralt, but he’s already weaving between tables, making for the door.

“Lovely to meet you, sir,” says Jaskier, scrambling to her feet. “Just—really, truly lovely.”

Her words glide past the fisherman, completely unnoticed. “Wait!” he shouts. “Will you wake me when it’s done?”

“I’m sure he will,” mutters Jaskier, following Geralt outside.

The seaside village is tucked into a cliff, huts nested into crevices, supported on pitch-coated platforms and rickety stilts. Dirt paths snake between the clumps of homes, converging on a main road to the docks below. The air prickles with salt and spray.

Jaskier joins Geralt near the edge of a slope. They face the crashing, gray stretch of the ocean, squinting into the breeze.

“Geralt,” she says, “you’re not really going to—”

Geralt snorts. “No. Going to warn her that she’s caught the eye of a lunatic.”

“How noble of you,” says Jaskier, amused. “If more men had your attitude, there’d be a lot less trouble.”

“Hm.” A wry smirk tugs at his mouth.

Jaskier peers over the edge. It’s a very sheer drop. She steps backwards. “That thing about the moonlight—was that true?”

“It wasn’t. I said that to buy us time.” Geralt slants his gaze to Jaskier. “I’ll need your help to find her.”

Jaskier raises a brow. “I’m not a great swimmer.”

“Then don’t swim,” he says. “Mermaids are attracted to song.”

“Ah, right.” Jaskier nods. “Singing. One of my myriad talents, excluding swimming.”

Geralt leads her to the shore. His nostrils flare, head turning in precise intervals, like the needle of a compass. He settles on an angle and strides along the beach, boots crunching in the sand. Occasionally, he takes a knee, examining the cracked remnant of a shell or a translucent fishbone.

“You never hear about this part of witchering, in the stories,” says Jaskier, kicking a pebble. “The boring part, I mean.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Geralt crouches, studying a washed-up clam.

Jaskier bends towards Geralt, sniffing like a hunting dog. “Hm, yes. I think it probably came from the ocean.”

A small smile skims over his face. “I’m looking for specific prey items,” he explains. “Finding her territory.”

“Have fun with that.” Jaskier straightens, swinging her lute into her arms. She plays idly as they walk, letting unfinished pieces of melodies leap over the percussion of the sea.

The beach curves into a cove. Rocks jut in a crescent over the water, rising like blunt teeth. Geralt beckons Jaskier onto an outcropping. “Here,” he says.

Jaskier clambers up the rock. She clings to her lute, nervous on the sea-slick surface. Her shoe slides on a patch of lichen, and she pitches forward, her heart lurching into her throat.

There’s a sudden pressure around her ribcage—the feeling of her soul leaking from her body, she’s certain—then the white shock drains from her vision, and she’s staring into Geralt’s broad chest, his arms wrapped around her torso.

“Huh,” she says, her tongue numb.

Geralt pulls back, leaving a hand to steady her shoulder. “Alright?”

Jaskier nods. “Yeah, uh. Thanks. Wow.” She stares at the ground, at the scant space between them. “Slippery.”

Geralt huffs. “Have you found your footing?”

“Yep,” she says, “definitely.”

He steps away. “Good. Now, play.”

Jaskier lowers herself carefully, sitting cross-legged. She sets her lute in her lap. Muscle memory drives the movement of her fingers. She fumbles a chord, starts over, and finds her voice again.

During the third song, there’s a distant splash, bubbles dispersing between the rocks. She pauses mid-chorus. “Geralt, is that—”

“Keep going,” he says, standing watch where the water laps at the rock.

A pale shape drifts beneath the waves. Jaskier struggles to keep her focus, looking for flashes of a silvery tail, strands of hair like trailing kelp. Each trace disappears, sinking into the void of the depths. 

Then, the surface bursts.

Blue-green hair drips over her narrow face. There’s a fishlike roundness to her eyes. She props her elbows on the rock’s edge, her grin revealing multiple rows of slim, sharp teeth.

Jaskier’s song grinds into silence. She clears her throat. “Um. Hello, noble creature. My name is Jaskier, and I am honored to—”

“She can’t understand you,” interrupts Geralt.

The mermaid’s giggle is a metallic chime. The sound blends into a melodic Elder phrase, shining and twisting like a ribbon. Jaskier’s knowledge of the Elder speech is still rusty; she can only guess at most of the words, especially when they’re bent into patterns of music.

Geralt grunts through a short Elder sentence. His pronunciation is rough, purely functional.

The mermaid tosses her tail. She trills another series of words in a clear, lilting tone. Jaskier hears fragments: _beanna_ , _taedh_ , _muire_. Woman, poet, sea. On the last word— _gwyn_ , meaning white—Geralt jerks.

“What?” asks Jaskier, but Geralt shakes his head, tries the same gruff warning again.

The mermaid pouts, coiling a wet strand of hair around her finger. Geralt sighs.

His next attempt is different, an artless ebb and flow pulling his words, spoken with almost none of his characteristic rasp. The pitch isn’t feminine, but its androgyny is striking. His shoulders hunch high around his ears, and he glares into the water. Jaskier flushes. Something smolders in her gut, shifting between shame and interest—it feels voyeuristic.

The mermaid’s laugh is louder this time, like pealing bells. Geralt runs a hand down his face.

“Hold on—I have an idea,” says Jaskier, fiddling with the neck of her lute. Geralt’s voice still buzzes in her brain.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What?”

“I could give it a try.”

“You’re not fluent in Elder speech, and this is a specific dialect.”

“Yes, a _sung_ dialect, obviously,” says Jaskier. “Now, what was your message?”

He eyes Jaskier warily, recites the words.

“Well, then.” She steels her spine, fills her lungs. The mermaid rests her chin in her hands.

The mermaid’s song had a climb and a descent, not unlike a chord progression. Jaskier does her best imitation, adding inflection and color to Geralt’s flat sentence, tuning her voice to compliment the mermaid’s pitch. 

The mermaid punctuates Jaskier’s song with a slap of her tail fin. The splash launches a shower of glittering droplets. She chirps, her huge eyes glowing.

Jaskier looks to Geralt. He’s staring back, with a furrowed brow and a slack mouth.

“Is that good?” A cautious smile pulls her lips. “Did she get it?”

“Yeah,” he says.

The mermaid smacks a wet hand on Geralt’s forearm, dragging him down. She leans over the rock, singing another rolling phrase into his ear. His face seizes in a grimace.

“Geralt?”

“Tell her,” he says, and more Elder words scrape from his throat.

Jaskier does; the mermaid laughs, and laughs, her shoulders shaking, tail flailing.

“I feel like I’m missing something here,” says Jaskier.

“She understands our warning.” Geralt stands. “We can go.”

But the mermaid croons sweetly, doe-eyed, and Geralt tips his head back, muttering a curse into the sky. He dictates another sentence to Jaskier.

The mermaid giggles, singing something to a quick, festive beat.

They exchange a few more lines, Jaskier translating. The music swells in her chest. The mermaid reaches a joyous crescendo, and Geralt has no response, but Jaskier can’t let the song stand unfinished. She repeats the mermaid’s last line. They volley the words back and forth, meandering and slowing organically. 

By the end, Jaskier joins the mermaid in laughter, red-faced and panting with effort. She turns to Geralt, preparing a silly one-liner about her musical prowess.

Instead, Jaskier gapes. He’s—he’s laughing, too. A genuine chuckle, unsullied by sarcasm. Her heart slams against her ribs.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, faintly. “What was I saying?”

“Roughly translated,” he says, “it was—may a shark rip that fisherman’s cock off.”

Jaskier splutters into another fit of laughter. Her cheeks burn, her sides ache. Sunlight bounces off the sea. The water seems brighter, the sky more blue. It’s strange, she thinks, to feel this moment dig into her mind—to be aware of it, curling up in the place where permanent memories form.

—

There are things Jaskier learns about Geralt of Rivia: he keeps his razor as sharp as his swords, maintaining his hairstyle with a fastidiousness that Jaskier would usually attribute to vanity. He avoids mirrors, stitches and re-stitches the same tattered clothes. He carries a curio shop’s worth of bits and broken pieces, an apothecary’s stock of herbs, and he wields his large hands with skilled steadiness. He mends, fixes, keeps a collection of small, well-used tools. He can name most birds, and some insects. He inserts himself between the bodies of aggressive men and frightened women, standing like a stone wall, emanating a quiet, eternal resilience. He navigates the world without expectations of kindness, or gratitude, or decency. He perseveres.

And, lastly, Geralt of Rivia is hiding something.

—

“I dedicate this song,” Jaskier declares, strutting the length of the small stage, “to anyone who’s had their heart broken by the beautiful women of Novigrad!”

Months of rural travel had worn Jaskier to a dull-eyed husk, but the endless pulsing energy of a Novigrad tavern jolts her back to life. This crowd doesn’t jeer at her expensive silk trousers, and they have enough patience to listen to something more artistic than a sea shanty.

Geralt, tucked into a corner table and hidden under his hood, drinks alone. She doesn’t expect anything more than his silent stoicism, but he always seems to appear at the edges of Jaskier’s vision before she takes a stage.

Jaskier plucks her lute carefully, building a tenuous, gossamer melody. It weaves into a somewhat overwrought ballad, packed with purple-prose metaphors about yearning for a distant love. The lyrics need work, but the song’s sincerity snares the crowd. She scans the tavern, mentally weighing the purses of anyone who looks particularly moved.

The last notes dissipate into the crash of applause. Jaskier takes a deep bow, which allows her to sweep her upturned cap in front of a shiny-eyed gaggle of young nobles; the clink of their crowns sounds almost as sweet as her lute. She straightens, tests the new weight of the cap, and contorts her avaricious grin into something more cherubic.

“What a _fantastic_ crowd,” she says, bending into another, quicker bow.

As she rises, her gaze snags on a flash of yellow. It’s a woman’s blouse, sunshine-bright against dark skin. The woman’s hand rests contemplatively against her lips, which curve into a smile when she notices Jaskier’s stare.

Jaskier’s heart stutters. She recovers with a saucy wink. The woman in yellow laughs, revealing white teeth and—gods preserve her—a set of dimples.

The crowd has thinned, now, retreating back to their tables and refilled tankards. Jaskier slings her lute across her back and jumps to the floor, half-running towards Geralt’s dour corner.

She dumps the capful of coins on the table. “Here. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Geralt grunts into his beer. He slides to the end of the bench, making a space for Jaskier.

“Sorry, darling, I’m off—don’t wait up for me,” she says, whirling away from the table, distracted by her search for sunflower-colored sleeves.

The woman’s name, Jaskier discovers, is Nadia. She likes cherry wine, and her easy grin makes Jaskier’s knees wobble, and they’ve barely stumbled into her home when Jaskier leans dizzily towards her laughing mouth.

“Wait,” says Nadia, placing a gentle hand on Jaskier’s sternum. “In the tavern—you aren’t together, right?”

Jaskier blinks, dazed by Nadia’s fingertips on her skin. “What?”

“The woman in the hood?”

“Uh,” says Jaskier. Her brain is sticky with wine, and she can’t grasp the context of Nadia’s question.

Nadia’s brows crease. “Light hair? Dark clothes? You were talking to her after the show, and—”

“Oh!” Jaskier’s eyes widen. “Oh, sweet Melitele, no.”

She doesn’t explain further, leaving Nadia’s other assumption uncorrected, and she’s not sure why. A small, wriggling uncertainty settles in her gut. It doesn’t matter—Nadia shoves her against the door, and the soft slide of hands under clothing is an exceptionally effective distraction.

In the morning, they share a pot of tongue-numbingly bitter black tea. Jaskier starts to ask a question and fails, several times. She presses a kiss to one of Nadia’s dimples before she leaves.

The tavern is half-full, but conversations are kept to a murmur, the patrons mindful of their own hangovers. Jaskier orders two plates of breakfast. Her stomach twists. It must be last night’s wine, or the over-steeped tea, or the heavy salt odor of fresh bacon. There’s no other explanation, no reason why she should feel as though she had woken up in a new world with a slightly tilted horizon. She and Geralt had been traveling together for the better part of two seasons; Jaskier had taken a few lovers during that time, and Geralt was mostly noncommittal about her trysts. If anything, hot food and and a night free from her ceaseless chatter should have Geralt in good spirits. 

Jaskier balances the plates, tapping the door to their shared room with her shoe. “Geralt?” she calls. “Can you get the door? My hands are full.”

The groan of floorboards betrays Geralt’s presence. On a forest’s cushion of moss and leaf litter, he’s silent as a mouse, but his bulk tends to strain architecture. She waits, preparing a cheery smile.

The door remains closed. Jaskier’s smile twitches. Her cheeks tighten with effort. 

Finally, the door swings open. Geralt’s mouth is set in a short, tense line. He takes a plate wordlessly and turns towards his bed. A rasher of bacon disappears before he sits down. He scratches at his chest, chewing with the absentminded determination of a cow.

Jaskier sits on the untouched bed across from Geralt’s. “Thank you, Jaskier,” she croaks, mocking his crushed-glass voice. 

This usually earns her a rolled eye, or a raised brow, but Geralt’s expression doesn’t change. He attacks his eggs, staring woodenly into his lap. There are purple smudges under his eyes.

“A bit grumpy today, are we?” Jaskier sets her plate on a side table. “Did you manage to sleep?”

Geralt dabs his bread in bacon grease. “Yes.”

“It doesn’t look that way. Not that I can talk, of course,” says Jaskier. Nervous babble rises in her throat like bile. “My company last night—well, she was _demanding_. Some of the dantiest-looking women can really be the most insatiable, you know? Wouldn’t have expected that, but it was a nice surprise.”

Geralt’s knuckles go white around the edge of his plate.

“And she—um,” says Jaskier. “Never mind. I slept fine, is my point, because she wore me out. It’s a good strategy. You might want to try it sometime.” Jaskier snatches her hunk of bread, starts ripping it to pieces.

“You bed women.” The words fall like bricks.

“I do,” says Jaskier. Apprehension creeps up her spine. “I hadn’t realized that would be a problem.”

“It’s not,” says Geralt. His tone is strange, furtive.

“Good, because it’s bound to happen again. In fact, when I was in Vizima last spring—”

“Spare me the details of your conquests, bard,” barks Geralt. “Doesn’t matter if it’s men or women—If you’d spend more time on a stage than in strangers’ beds, your presence might actually be worth the trouble.”

“Excuse me,” says Jaskier, “what does _that_ mean?”

“You’re a liability.” He pierces Jaskier with a frigid glare. “Don’t expect me to defend you from any scorned spouses if you can’t keep your legs closed.”

“As if I haven’t done a brilliant job defending _you_ from the ire of the masses,” she spits. Hot anger seeps from her chest, spilling into her gut. “A liability—I saved your reputation! Whose tune is it that every tiny hamlet between here and Cintra knows, hm?”

“Song’s annoying,” mumbles Geralt.

“Oh,” says Jaskier, “it’s _annoying_? Sorry, I suppose you’d rather just be remembered as the Butcher forever!”

Geralt goes from sitting to standing in a single, breathless instant, dislodging his empty plate. Jaskier braces for the shatter, but it clanks against the floor, unbroken.

“Don’t have time for this,” says Geralt, fists clenched. “Should’ve been on the road by now.”

Her fury builds, roiling and roaring—but suddenly, there’s a deep yank in Jaskier’s chest, and she’s numb. She’s floating two inches to the left of her body, imperfectly superimposed.

“Very well,” says Jaskier. “I won’t keep you, then.”

Geralt stills. The weight of his scrutiny pins her to the bed. 

“It’s not too far to Oxenfurt.” She stares at Geralt’s scuffed boots. 

“Jaskier,” says Geralt, “I—”

She cuts over his words. His remorse could weaken her resolve. “I know when I’ve overstayed my welcome, Witcher.”

Geralt inhales, exhales. He nods.

He packs in silence. Each movement is carefully telegraphed, like he’s trying not to spook a horse. When he’s gone, Jaskier pitches her torn pieces of bread at the wall, watching them explode into crumbs.

—

Jaskier’s return to Oxenfurt is underwhelming. 

On the road, she’d taken to cropping her hair short, for the dual purpose of convenience and the feeling of Geralt’s patient hands against her neck, cleaning the edges with his razor. For days, Jaskier’s old colleagues are unable to comment on anything else. This has the unfortunate effect of triggering memories: in particular, the night after her first trim, when she’d persuaded Geralt to lay his hand against hers, comparing the sizes.

She manages to make enough intelligent sounds in the right order to secure a series of lectures for the winter semester—her bitterness must read as world-weariness to the sheltered elite. She spends her free hours refining the ballad from the Novigrad tavern, pruning it into something more bleak and spare to match the chill rolling over the Pontar. 

The anger calms over time. She curses her own impulsiveness, her willingness to let a comment boil into a conflict, though she reasons that it was better to nip that disrespect in the bud and to move on with her career. The real torture comes with the wondering—who was it, really, that she abandoned in Novigrad? She speaks with authority on songcraft and monster-slaying and the burden of prejudice, but her memories of Geralt ring hollow when struck.

_I’m not sure I ever got a chance to know you_ , she thinks, three glasses into a wine bottle, sinking into the smothering fluff of her mattress.

Winter eases, slowly. Jaskier waffles when asked about spring commitments, spending the lukewarm evenings avoiding campus by wandering the harbor.

She’s perched on a shipping crate, tracing her lute’s filigree, unable to pluck more than a few discordant notes. Her hair reaches her ears, now, and the breeze blows it into her eyes. The sun slinks below the line of the river, staining the docks orange. Boats sway gently in the sluggish current. She could buy a spot on a ship, maybe. Throw a dart at a map.

A huge black shape smears across her vision.

Jaskier jerks back, cradling her lute to her chest. She gawks at the cloaked figure, who skids to a stop, kicking up a puff of dust.

The figure backpedals, tugging the hood down.

“Oh, _fuck_ right off,” she groans.

Gold irises, slitted pupils. Obvious, even through his squint. “Jaskier?”

She swings her legs over the crate, hopping down. “Nope. No. Absolutely not.”

“Wait,” he says, “Jaskier,” and then there’s a grip on her arm, wrenching her back in his direction. His presence splits scabs that she’d hoped were scars, bleeding grief and rage.

“What the fuck,” she shrieks, “get _off_!” She doesn’t recall him like this, brandishing his strength so carelessly—perhaps time and distance had sweetened her memories.

“It’s not safe,” he snarls. “Move.”

She stumbles along. “What’s not safe? Geralt?”

He increases his pace, forcing Jaskier into a jog. “You can’t,” she says, anger rising with each breath, “you can’t just _waltz_ back into my life and act as though you’ve got any _right_ —”

“Less talking, more running,” he grunts. He throws frantic glances over his shoulder, pulling Jaskier through a maze of side streets. Sweat slides down her temple.

“Fuck,” he hisses, barely a warning before he swerves into an alley. The momentum knocks her to her knees. Her lute slips off her shoulders. She stays there, nose to the grimy cobble, blood pounding.

“Up,” says Geralt, yanking her to her feet.

She writhes in his grip, grasping for the lute. “I hope Roach stomps your balls, you prick!”

“Unlikely,” says Geralt, “considering—oh, shit.”

He twists her, pressing his chest to her back. The icy edge of a dagger bites into her throat.

There is another Geralt in the alley.

“Perfect,” she wheezes. “Really, this is great. Is it my birthday already?”

“Shut up,” spits the first Geralt.

The other Geralt takes a step forward.

“Don’t! Not an inch closer!” The dagger burns at her neck.

“Jaskier.” The new Geralt’s voice is muted, dripping with guilt.

She snorts. “Oh, that’s the real one, all right,” Jaskier says, slanting away from the blade.

“You have no quarrel with the bard,” says Geralt, coaxing. “Let her go.”

“Leave this city, Witcher, and I’ll consider it.” Not-Geralt adjusts his grip on the hilt.

“This isn’t necessary.” Geralt kneels gradually, setting his sword on the ground.

Jaskier’s eyes go wide. She shakes her head with subtle twitches. This is not the time for risks.

“That’s better,” says Not-Geralt, sneering, “but not good enough. Say, Witcher, does your bard know? Does she know how much of a freak you really are? If you leave now, I won’t tell her that you’re—”

It’s the molten-hot panic, cracking like veins of magma through Geralt’s stone face, that drives Jaskier to sink her teeth into Not-Geralt’s wrist.

He howls. Geralt uses the distraction to curl his fingers into a sign. A wave of force blasts Not-Geralt backwards, sending the dagger skittering across the cobblestones. Geralt snatches his sword; Not-Geralt dives for the dagger. Jaskier lurches towards the wall, flattening herself against the bricks.

She could run. Adrenaline sears through her veins. But she can’t peel herself from the wall, watching the two witchers strike and twist at blinding speed, the screech of their steel piercing her ear. Not-Geralt’s effort is admirable, but he’s outmatched, tiring too quickly with flailing sweeps of his blade. The real Geralt balances his power with precision, stalking towards Not-Geralt, lunging and retreating like a deadly, inexorable tide.

The flurry ends with the tip of Geralt’s sword held to Not-Geralt’s throat.

Not-Geralt drops the dagger. He raises his hands, palms open. “Please,” he says, “please don’t.”

Geralt’s lip curls, eyes dark with fury and disgust. 

“Have mercy,” begs Not-Geralt. “Oh, Gods, don’t kill me.”

Something in Geralt’s face goes tight, then snaps.

“Change into another form,” he says, “and never set foot in Oxenfurt again.”

“Thank you,” gasps Not-Geralt. His skin bubbles, loosens, sags like taffy. “Thank you, thank you so much. I’ll leave, I promise. Thank you.”

The thing keeps speaking, its profuse thanks garbled by its convulsing form. Jaskier retches. 

Eventually, the globs of flesh resolve into the shape of a pockmarked teen. Geralt lowers his sword. The boy darts away, racing towards the main road.

Jaskier swallows. Her tongue lies thick in her mouth. “You—you’re going to let him go?”

Geralt shrugs. “Most dopplers are harmless,” he says. “He’s wanted for theft. Nothing more.”

“He tried to _murder me_.”

“He was bluffing.” Geralt drifts closer. He looks exhausted, insubstantial, like fog sculpted into a person. 

Jaskier tries to gather the last remnants of her anger, but they slither away. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because,” he says, “you bit him while he held a knife to your throat, and you’re not dead.” He reaches for Jaskier’s chin—so slowly, comically slowly, providing an infinite stretch of time to step away—and tilts her head, scanning the curve of her neck. “Not even a scratch.”

His calloused fingers are warm, thumb brushing her bottom lip. He drops his hand. Little pools of heat spread under the places he touched.

“I need a drink,” says Jaskier. “Do you want a drink?”

They find a tavern with an especially surly barmaid, thunking their steins down hard enough to slosh beer over Jaskier’s sleeve. The irritated arch of her brow is—familiar, actually. They might have slept together. _Fuck,_ she thinks, chugging half her beer at once.

Geralt purses his lips.

“Don’t even think about judging me,” she warns. “I’ve had a long day.”

He takes a swig. Streetlamps glow through the window, painting the sharp planes of his face yellow. The silence is thick enough to taste.

Jaskier slumps forward, resting her head in her folded arms.

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s soft tone slips like a blade between her ribs. “Are you hurt?”

“Just tired.” She hides a cynical smile in her sleeves. “Like you said—not a scratch.”

“Hm.” He pauses. “Your hair got long.”

“It’s not so long, really. Not like it was.” She pushes herself upright, battling a sticky mix of irritation and desire. “How was your winter?”

“Cold.”

Jaskier rolls her eyes. “Gods above, Geralt, why do I even bother?”

“I don’t know.” There’s a hint of sincerity there, like bone peeking from a raw wound. “I’m not staying long.”

“Where are you headed?”

“South. Wyvern problem near Gors Velen.”

She’s meant to give her last lecture in two days. The Department of Fine Arts is hosting a banquet next week—there’s a new dress in her closet, and it would never fit in a saddlebag.

“Apologize,” says Jaskier.

Geralt turns his gaze to the window. Shadows deepen at the corners of his mouth.

“Apologize to me,” she continues, “so that I can follow you to Gors Velen while maintaining my last shreds of dignity.”

His eyes flick to Jaskier’s, then back to the window, watching crowds of Oxenfurt’s finest bumble through the streets, staining their frippery with sweat and liquor. 

Jaskier picks at the chipped rim of her stein.

“I was cruel,” Geralt murmurs. “For no reason. I’m sorry.”

Jaskier’s throat constricts. She’d expected to feel relief, or righteous indignation—and she does, but those emotions are subsumed by something huge, inflamed, painful to the touch.

_A problem for another day_ , she thinks.

“Oh, thank the gods,” she says, mustering all her flippant charm. “I was afraid I’d have to sign on for another semester—if I have to listen to one more pompous man in a stupid hat bloviate about his new poetry collection, I’ll vomit.”

Geralt offers a quick, brittle smile.

—

Poplar trees line the twisting path. In the distance, pale stone winks through a net of branches and crawling vines. Jaskier glimpses a sprawl of a garden, brimming with fruit and flowers and hovering birds. Roach snorts hopefully, but Geralt tugs her reins, keeping her attention to the trail. The silhouette of the temple becomes clearer as they walk, revealing the shapes of a gate and a few huddled, modest buildings.

Only a few of the priestesses flinch at Geralt’s approach. Older girls whisper to younger ones behind cupped hands. Jaskier winces, but those secret words seem to act as a comfort, and the worry fades from their faces. A solemn redhead spots them, nods, and strides away with purpose.

Geralt dismounts, stroking Roach’s neck. 

The redhead returns with a middle-aged woman. She pauses, hands on her hips, shifting the pouches and baubles that dangle from her sturdy belt.

There’s a flash of wordless communication between Geralt and the woman. They speak in narrowed eyes, tilted heads, and other signs Jaskier can’t parse. It’s over in an instant, concealed by the grin that spreads across the woman’s wide, lined face.

“Geralt,” she says, tugging him down into an embrace. “It’s been too long!”

He bends willingly. “Good to see you, Nenneke.”

“Now, I’ll let you restock, you know that—but before you dig through the greenhouse, I’m going to force you to stay for dinner, at least.” Nenneke eyes Jaskier with maternal scrutiny. “And we’ll feed your friend, too, of course.”

“My name is Jaskier,” she says, dipping into a curtsy. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mother.”

Nenneke scoffs. “There’s no need for that. Great Melitele, you’ll make me feel old.”

“We were hoping to spend the night,” says Geralt.

“Of course.” Nenneke beckons the redhead. “Iola, show Jaskier to one of the spare rooms. Geralt—we should catch up, I think.”

Nenneke leads Geralt and Roach into the poplars. Jaskier watches, dazed. She scratches a bug bite, just to feel like she’s accomplishing something.

“Are they, uh. Related?” she asks.

Iola shakes her head.

“Huh.” Jaskier fidgets with the straps of her pack. “To the room, I suppose?”

They pass through the gate, across a courtyard, under the pregnant belly of a Melitele statue. Priestesses flutter around in dove-gray skirts. A few of them stare openly at her purple brocade tunic.

Jaskier’s room is tucked discreetly at the end of a hall in the sanctuary building. Its small window is crossed with lines of twine, holding bundles of drying violets. She thanks Iola and drops her pack, flops over the bed, staring into the cracked plaster ceiling. The priestess flits into the hall, creaking the door closed.

A few nights ago, Geralt had frowned into his box of potions, frowned at the map, then explained this visit as a necessary detour. Jaskier hadn’t thought to pry. She imagined that the Temple of Melitele would accept Geralt with begrudging tolerance, pinching their noses, shoving herbs into his hands so that they could be rid of him without trouble. She hadn’t expected him to be _known_.

She turns over, presses her face into the sheets.

The problem is that Jaskier isn’t stupid.

She loves easily. She loves without preference. The general public doesn’t care who she sleeps with—a contrast to her youth. Her family had a neurotic fixation on the maintenance of appearances. They were minor nobles, performing a precarious dance between extreme visibility and a lack of true power. She had to suffocate her otherness, hiding it behind tight-laced fingers, struggling to breathe.

She recognizes these symptoms in Geralt of Rivia.

Any further speculation makes Jaskier queasy. She can guess, but it’s invasive; it feels like asking Geralt to slice himself open, to wrench his own ribs apart, just to see if their organs match. She’s too entangled, too desperate for his infrequent touches and his hard-won smiles to be objective, or careful.

Jaskier bolts to her feet, wanders to the garden. The sun-stained trees and abundant flowers make it easier to ignore the itch in her chest. She flirts shamelessly with the senior priestesses, plucks raspberries, and pretends to be content.

The sky darkens. Shadows unfurl over the temple grounds. Jaskier gets slightly lost, ambling along the outermost buildings until the swell of the marble Melitele’s stomach peeks out from around a corner. She beelines for it, passing a window.

It must be unlatched, because Geralt’s voice carries into the courtyard.

Jaskier’s steps falter.

“—if it’s still safe,” he’s saying. She stops, bites her thumbnail.

Nenneke’s voice joins Geralt’s. She only hears slivers of the conversation: “options to consider”, and “doesn’t know?”

There’s an ambiguous hum from Geralt, and more muffled words. She inches as close to the window as she dares, praying that the wildflowers mask her scent.

“—made of sterner stuff than most,” says Nenneke. “You won’t break, but—being bound so often, it’s not wise—”

“I know.”

There’s a sigh, followed by silence. Each one of Jaskier’s exhales seems thunderously loud. She rips herself away, heart running ragged.

It was wrong to stop. It was wrong to listen, to take something not freely given. She pushes through the door to the sanctuary, staring at the raspberry stains on her fingertips.

A tiny girl knocks shyly, later, to call Jaskier to dinner. She answers from under the covers of her borrowed bed: her stomach’s upset, could they possibly set aside some food for tomorrow? The girl accepts this, offering clumsy condolences. 

After a cautious length of time, Jaskier slips into the hall. There’s too much activity in the kitchens to investigate without being noticed, but she finds a dusty storeroom, and there are glass bottles on a high shelf.

She sneaks back to her room, a bottle in her fist, and pops the cork. With each drink, the walls loom closer, and the ceiling crowds down, and then she’s stumbling up the stairs until there are no more left, just a roof and a vast indigo sky.

A black-silver shape is lounging against the parapet.

Turning back would be futile; she’s already revealed herself with lumbering footfalls. She wobbles towards him, swaying the bottle, singsonging: “Open your mouth and close your eyes!”

“I can smell it.”

“You’re no fun.” She slumps down the wall.

Geralt joins her, sitting cross-legged. “Thought you weren’t feeling well.”

“Pretty sure,” says Jaskier, turning the bottle in her hand, “this is medicine. Medicinal.” The herbal aftertaste is overpowering, which is a good sign that it’s meant to go in elixirs. “Also, just—I just thought, be funny to get drunk in a temple, wouldn’t it?”

He snorts, reaches for the bottle. She passes it over.

“What was your childhood like?” says Jaskier.

He takes a swig, wincing through it. “Don’t remember much before Kaer Morhen.”

The swift reply is startling. Her non-sequiturs are not usually met with that level of success. “Tell me about Kaer Morhen, then.”

“My mentor was called Vesemir. He got old enough to actually look old. That’s rare, in our profession.” He drinks, letting the pause linger. “Vesemir was a good teacher, and a good man. He was a really crotchety asshole, too. Made us run a lot.”

“Little witchers,” says Jaskier, “racing around, hitting things. Sniffing. Were there a lot of you?”

“Used to be,” says Geralt.

“Tell me, darling. Tell me about the little witchers.”

Geralt reclines, facing the sky. “Eskel was my age,” he says. “We were close. Got into trouble together. He never treated me differently.”

Jaskier squints. “Differently from what?”

Geralt stiffens. He lifts the bottle, throat shifting, until the liquor’s almost drained. Jaskier stifles a complaint.

Eventually, he speaks. “My training was—unique. Went through more mutations than the others, and I looked different. Kids pick up on that.”

The explanation is hollow. Jaskier is certain of it, even through the miasma of alcohol. But Geralt’s huge hands are tense around the neck of the bottle, and she can see the pale shine of scars across his knuckles, and those things—accompanied by a squirm of guilt—persuade her to change the subject.

“You’re putting all my childhood woes to shame,” she says. “All I had to deal with was—tight bodices. And the total insanity of court etiquette.”

“Court?”

“Yeah, Geralt, _court_.” Jaskier wiggles her fingers theatrically. “ _Technically_ I’m a viscountess. Julia Pankratz de Lettenhove.” She sweeps her arms out, bending in a seated bow.

Geralt hums. “For a noble, you don’t have much money.”

Her indignant splutter morphs into a laugh. “S’not like they’re sending me an allowance.” She tries to contain her bitterness, but it wriggles free. “My family let me go to the Academy only after I begged. On the condition that I find a—a fucking husband, can you _imagine_? I don’t even reply to their letters. I bet they tell people that I died in a horrible shipwreck, or something.”

The stars swarm above. They wink, teasing a million distant, shiny secrets.

“Or got mauled by a bear,” she murmurs. “Or fell off the edge of the world.”

“Seems likely,” says Geralt.

“That I got mauled by a bear, or that my parents tell people I did?” Jaskier extends her hand. When the bottle isn’t forthcoming, she pouts. “Quit hogging.”

“You’ve had enough. It’s strong.”

She stretches her mouth in a hyperbolic scowl. Geralt, unmoved, drinks the last dregs.

“Y’know,” slurs Jaskier, “you can tell me anything, right?”

She twists to see his face, but it’s tilted down, shielded by his loose hair.

“Anything at all,” says Jaskier. She tips over, squashing her cheek against his thigh.

A hand settles in her hair, gentle as a landing bird. Jaskier closes her eyes.

—

The stench is nauseating, sweet earth and decay and something chemical, alkaline, like lye. They wade through it, eyes watering.

“I think this job is already done, Geralt,” grits Jaskier. “Has been done. For a few very hot weeks, maybe.”

“If you want to turn around, do it.” He bends a branch out of their path. When Jaskier is clear, he lets it snap back.

“Right, sure. Lovely day to get lost in the woods.” The forest is a collection of stately pines, spiking from the needle-covered ground at distant intervals. Their aroma is masked by the stink of rot.

Geralt wrinkles his face, swiping at his nose like a bee-stung dog. “The road is west from here.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know which way is west?”

“Use the sun.”

“ _Use the sun_ ,” she mocks, shrill.

They stop in front of a massive green lump. Its desiccated hide sticks and splits along trails of yellowed bone. Chasms in its body reveal a slosh of guts.

Jaskier holds her sleeve over her nose. “Please, for the love of every god that may or may not exist—please tell me you’re not going to try to strap that thing to Roach.”

He unsheathes his sword, prods at the torso with the point of the blade. It squelches.

“I miss when you just smelled like onion,” says Jaskier.

“Quiet.” Geralt crouches near the corpse. He examines it, brows furrowed, probing with his blade.

Geralt’s brows shoot high. He stands abruptly.

“It was gravid,” he says, gravely, like that should means something to a bard with a liberal arts education.

“Tragic,” says Jaskier. “Is there a market for fermented basilisk eggs, or were you just making an observation?”

“It had a mate, idiot,” growls Geralt, just as one of the nearby pines explodes with an ear-shattering screech. A pea-colored blur swoops down, outstretched claws thick and sharp as cleavers, and Geralt’s last-second block deflects one scaled foot but the other slides off his blade and into his collarbone. There’s a rip, a crunch, and Geralt is thrown to the ground. A snapping beak, drooling viscous liquid, weaves between Geralt’s desperate blows.

A horrified sound creaks from Jaskier’s mouth.

The basilisk’s head whips around, its dull eye meeting hers, the wrinkled flab of its neck swaying.

Geralt wrenches out of its hold with a tight roll. The basilisk rears back, screams in Jaskier’s face—it sounds like a chorus of chickens, burning alive. _That’s the last thing I’m going to hear_ , she thinks. _Burning chickens_.

There’s a slash of silver, a squeal, a thud. The monster, divested of its head, twitches and slumps over, matching its former mate.

Jaskier doesn’t expect the second thud.

Geralt hits his knees, leaning on his propped sword. He shudders, breath coming in harsh pants, until his grip falters and he falls on his back, prone, spasming in the pine needles.

“Fuck,” says Jaskier, scrambling to his side. “Geralt?”

A vertical red gash dominates Geralt’s chest. The cloudy globs from the basilisk’s beak mix with Geralt’s cascading blood, turning into a pink slurry. The claw tore through his leather, something that Jaskier can barely comprehend, because Geralt is forever cloaked behind black, and now she’s seeing ragged ridges of skin that had only existed in abstract, before.

Geralt’s face is paper-white, coated in a slick of sweat. He swallows, his throat clicking, biting out tiny, pained grunts.

“No no no,” says Jaskier. “This isn’t—it can’t—Geralt, what’s happening?”

“Venom,” chokes Geralt. “Can’t move.”

“Alright, venom,” she says, voice airy with panic. “You brought potions, right? What have you got? Will any of these work?” She yanks little bottles from a pouch at his side, waving them over Geralt’s head.

The muscles in his face ripple, strained from the effort of speaking. “Yellow one.”

Jaskier pops the cork with quivering hands. “Good, then, I’m just. Just going to—” She reaches out to steady his trembling jaw, lifts the bottle over his mouth.

“ _No_ ,” groans Geralt.

Jaskier jumps. She steadies the bottle in her squeezed fist. “What—what the fuck am I meant to do with it, then?”

Geralt sucks in a breath, huffs it out, grimacing.

“Gods damn you, Geralt, spit it out.” Tears swell in her eyes.

“In,” he says, through clenched teeth, “in the wound.”

“Was that so fucking hard?” murmurs Jaskier weakly, leaning back on her heels. She peels a piece of armor away, the leather shaking like a leaf in her grip. The dark sludge of his blood looks—too deep. Bottomless.

She pours the potion. It swirls over the gash, fizzing into a sallow foam. A harsh moan skids from Geralt’s throat.

“So,” says Jaskier. “In terms of imminent peril—how are we doing?”

He glares, but the flex of his brow looks more deliberate than it had before.

“Right, stupid question.” Jaskier shrugs out of her tunic. She tears at the hem of her chemise, wadding the cotton to sop up the venom-blood ooze. When the cloth is saturated, she throws it aside, pulls her sleeve from its seam.

“I don’t have anything better to compress it with,” babbles Jaskier, “but we have to—to keep the blood _inside_ your body, I think, so let’s just use this.”

Jaskier positions the rolled-up sleeve, hovering over the wound. Evidently, Geralt has regained some control; his arm leaps like a lunging snake, hand coiled tight around her wrist.

“The fuck?” she hisses, and then she sees Geralt’s other arm scrabbling over his ruined armor, trying to fold it closed.

The moment holds, freezes, thaws, and the secret ache in Jaskier’s chest splits like a seed, blooms into something blue and soft—sorrow, or sentiment, or both, or neither.

“Oh, Geralt,” breathes Jaskier. “I know, love. I _know_.”

She could draw his silhouette with her eyes shut. But this outline of Geralt, bloodied and torn, is different. Beneath his shirt, a stiff band of cloth lies in tatters.

His chest curves, in a way she had suspected it might.

“It’s alright,” she says, “I don’t care,” and the flint in Geralt’s eyes fades. He releases her wrist. She presses the makeshift compress against his wound, guides his hands to rest on top.

Jaskier tips potions between Geralt’s lips until he can move without shaking. He limps against her all the way to the road, where Roach and the saddlebags are waiting. They make a perfunctory camp. Geralt scowls through a stomach-churning number of stitches, dousing the wound with vodka. The combined smell of blood and alcohol and woodsmoke is almost mundane on a witcher’s Path, but it seems out of place, now, in this odd limbo between revelation and confession.

He sits with his knees drawn up, arms crossed firmly over his chest. If she didn’t know better, she would think he looked cold.

“This doesn’t have to change anything,” offers Jaskier.

Geralt drops his head in his hands. His shoulders shift. 

Jaskier’s stomach plunges. “I—are you—oh.”

He lifts his head. He’s laughing through a wry, crooked grin.

“What,” says Jaskier, a little rankled.

“Your sincerity,” says Geralt. “Didn’t know you were capable of being so earnest.”

“Well, excuse me for trying to be understanding,” she snaps.

“No—I’m laughing at myself, too.” He turns to stare down the road, at the point where it meets the horizon. “For being a fucking fool.”

Jaskier bites the inside of her cheek. She looks down at her hands, at the blood dried in the creases of her palms.

“I’m not a man,” says Geralt.

“That’s not necessarily true—”

“I’m aware. And I’m not a man.”

Jaskier’s pulse gallops, beating in her ears. “Are you a woman?”

“More or less.”

The vague response is so typical of the witcher she knows that despite herself—despite the fact that the conversation feels like leaping off a cliff—a glow of fondness peeks through her nerves. “Can you extrapolate, a bit?”

There’s a huff of assent. “I was always big, for a girl, but the mutations made me bigger.” The words lurch, unpracticed and unwieldy. “I found that I could pass for a man when I left Kaer Morhen. It was an accident, the first time. But it suited my purposes. Made some things easier.” The witcher’s arms tense, tendons and joints catching shadows. “Didn’t bother me as much as I thought it should.”

Half-formed thoughts and fragments of emotion writhe in Jaskier’s brain. She snatches one, molds it into a question. “Do you ever use your given name?”

“No. Not the one forced upon me at birth.” The witcher’s lips twist in a private, bitter smile. “When my hair turned white, Vesemir started calling me Gwyn.”

“Gwyn,” says Jaskier. “I like that.”

“On the job, it’s Geralt. Always.” A stern reminder—a boundary, built.

She nods. “And when we’re alone?”

“Up to you.”

Jaskier tilts her head, contemplating. “Did you know,” she says, flamboyantly, like she’s introducing a ballad, “that I’ve met the famous witcher, Geralt of Rivia? He’s a real boor, actually. Grumbles at me, doesn’t let me on his horse. But sometimes, I travel with Gwyn, and she’s—” Jaskier pauses, testing the pronoun. “She’s just as surly, really. I can’t catch a break.”

Across the fire, there’s a hum. “Maybe Gwyn would be more pleasant if she wasn’t forced to endure your whining.” The jab has no heat—it’s just the conclusion to a verbal loop, the seamless end of a circle, one they’ve repeated hundreds of times.

Jaskier plucks _Gwyn_ and _she_ from the reply, to secure them, carefully, in her mind.

Questions bubble up, but she forces them down. She’s been given enough. The rest will come with time, with observation, just like before. Instead, she stocks the fire, burrows into her bedroll. Her eyelids droop.

Memories float by in the haze between consciousness and sleep. The pines, the blood, the hoarse rattles of breath. Her witcher’s broken body. The word _love_ , dropped from her lips.

Her eyes fly open.

_Oh, fuck._

—

It was easy for Jaskier to be a cocky nuisance when she first met Geralt of Rivia. She’d dismissed him as an uncomplicated, sword-swinging oaf, who was just as likely to be a quick fuck as he was a kickstart to her bardic career. Most of her grand gesturing about destiny and heartbreak had been clumsy attempts at soothing a male ego. But he didn’t respond to the flirting, or the ego-soothing, and there was a quiet melancholy in him that surprised Jaskier, kept her fluttering along in his wake.

For several days after the basilisk hunt, Jaskier is tentative, almost timid, compared to that initial encounter in Posada.

It’s not that Gwyn is particularly different. The name Geralt is like another layer of armor—she’s the same person underneath. It’s Jaskier who has to tread mindfully, who keeps stumbling upon new, upsetting revelations: the fact that Gwyn had been suffering by binding her chest constantly in Jaskier’s vicinity, for instance, or that Gwyn has had to pay egregiously for discreet prostitutes, or that Jaskier is in love with her.

Jaskier is accustomed to loving quickly. A topple over a precipice, a head-rush of emotion; the ground surging up to smack her, the disinterest that follows. Somehow, with Gwyn, she managed to do it properly. Irrevocably, maybe. It was a gradual ascent, but she’s at the peak of it, weary and sore. There is nothing to do but sit with the hurt and remind herself that if Geralt never demonstrated interest in Jaskier, or anyone else, she should not expect it from Gwyn. She vows to contain herself within the borders of friendship. 

As is the case with most of Jaskier’s vows, she is only marginally successful.

The wound makes it difficult for Gwyn to raise her arms. Jaskier sits behind her, propped on a log, pulling the razor over Gwyn’s overgrown shave. Then, when the stitches are cut and the skin underneath goes taut and pink, Jaskier does it again, just for the trancelike calm it brings. She justifies this intimacy by making it transactional—after all, had Gwyn not done the same for her?

They trade in this new currency. Gwyn mends the torn strap of Jaskier’s lute case, so Jaskier rinses her interchangeable black shirts in the stream nearby. Jaskier picks celandine, honeysuckle, wolfsbane, and tucks them in Gwyn’s pack beside the alchemical supplies, so Gwyn grinds willow bark into a smear of salve and drops a pot in Jaskier’s lap, grunting that she’ll suffer no more complaints about Jaskier’s aching feet. Gwyn permits Jaskier, touch-starved from weeks on the road, to drape her legs across Gwyn’s as they chat fireside. Jaskier permits Gwyn, nonverbal after the sensory overflow of a city, to waste days riding Roach through swaths of wilderness without stopping to seek a job or an inn.

They part, and meet, and part again, for weeks or for seasons. Jaskier beds strangers (because she’s in love, not dead) and Gwyn bears it with passive-aggressive fatigue, like a henpecked husband. She pens ballads that detail the White Wolf’s adventures, favoring the epithet over the name Geralt. Nobody seems to notice the paucity of pronouns in her more recent work.

On an overcast day somewhere in the armpit of Redania, as a village with a ghoul infestation fades to a distant speck at their backs, they reach the invisible boundary where Geralt becomes Gwyn again. She reaches under her shirt, unhooks the band of cloth. Her next breath is a deep, grateful inhale that catches a rasp of sound on the way out.

“I don’t know how you dealt with that thing, constantly, for a full gods-forsaken year,” comments Jaskier, petting Roach’s flank as they walk. “Putting the secrecy of the matter aside—why in the world didn’t you just abandon me in the night?”

“Something would’ve eaten you,” quips Gwyn.

“Could’ve slipped out of a tavern while I was performing,” says Jaskier. “Or lost me in a crowd somewhere. Really, I’m very easily distracted.”

Gwyn slants a look at Jaskier. “I enjoyed your company,” she says, simply.

The sky is covered in clouds, but she’d swear that the sun came out in that moment, beaming a shock of heat over Jaskier’s body.

“The operative word there being _enjoyed_ , past tense,” says Jaskier, floundering into a joke. “At this point, I think you just use me to lug around Roach’s oats.”

“True,” says Gwyn. “Next town, I’ll trade you in for a donkey.”

Jaskier barks a laugh. “Are you calling me an ass?”

“Sure,” says Gwyn, and they continue along those lines, settling into their routine banter, and _that_ is what Jaskier masturbates to, later—not Gwyn’s biceps bunching as she chops firewood with a handaxe, not the gleam of sweat on her collarbone afterwards—it’s the bare honesty in those words, _I enjoyed your company_ , looping in her head.

She extracts her hand from her skirt, feeling especially pathetic, and wipes her fingers on her blanket, waiting for Gwyn to return with something snared for supper.

—

“Don’t think of it as a favor,” says Jaskier, cursing herself with each word that tumbles from her mouth. “Think of it as me saving my own life, in the event that you need to cut a monster in half, and your shoulder twinges, and whoops, you’ve bisected your bard instead.”

“Not how that works,” mutters Gwyn, rolling her neck.

“But what if it _is_ , though?” Jaskier halts her whine with a sigh. “If you’re really so opposed, I won’t badger you about it.”

“Didn’t say I was opposed,” says Gwyn.

“Well,” says Jaskier, cautious, “you’d better lie down, then.”

The issue is that, without the constraint of a hidden identity, Gwyn takes to being a lot less clothed. The issue is that, in the safety of a forest clearing, she sheds her shirt without warning. The issue is that it makes Jaskier insane. 

It could be cosmic payback for Jaskier’s occasional spontaneous nudity, but she doesn’t really believe that the gods are up there keeping count.

It’s the apex of summer. The weather is a hot, held breath, ruthlessly humid. Gwyn had trudged into camp at dawn, after many hours spent escorting some lordling’s son across a bog. She’d stripped instantly, striding for the blue stripe of a stream, just visible between the trees; she returned with the drowner slime gone from her hair, pulled on a pair of clean trousers, and leaned back on the heels of her hands, bare-chested. 

Jaskier had noted the stiffness in the set of Gwyn’s shoulders—then she blacked out, briefly, and found herself offering to rub them.

Gwyn lowers to the ground, laying her head in her crossed arms. The slight swell of her breasts pressed to the bedroll is a compliment to the cut of her obliques. Jaskier’s nerves buzz. She shuffles to Gwyn’s side, tries to bend over the broad span of her torso while keeping her knees planted safely on the ground. The position is awkward.

_I hope the gods are laughing_ , she thinks, swinging her leg over Gwyn’s lower back.

Jaskier’s inner thighs tense, the fabric of her breeches straining around the thick bulk of Gwyn’s core. Sun dapples her skin, pools of light crossed through with scars, curving over ridges of bone and muscle.

“You asleep up there?” grumbles Gwyn.

Jaskier swats her. “Just trying to figure out where to start, you absolute mountain of a person.”

Gwyn hums skeptically.

Jaskier explores the join of her neck and shoulder. The triangle of muscle is taut, and her fingers skid on rigid knots. She puts her weight into her thumbs, presses down on the most dense places. Gwyn huffs.

“There, yeah?” says Jaskier, mindlessly, rubbing in compact circles.

Gwyn’s answering grunt is muffled in the crook of her elbow.

The humidity sticks, slips over their skin. Her hands cling faintly to Gwyn’s back as she seeks new knots. There’s a gnarled spot adjacent to her spine, and Jaskier spreads it under her fingers, digging deep.

It’s meditative work. Rhythmic. Her forearms are dextrous from lute-strumming, and there is an uncomplicated pleasure in their use, in the press-rest-press tempo. Gwyn responds with involuntary twitches, rushes of breath.

It’s—it’s a lot like—

Jaskier’s thumbs sink into the dips below her shoulderblades, and Gwyn groans.

The sound crashes over her in a scorching wave. She’s abruptly aware that she’s slick in her smallclothes, that every shift of Gwyn’s body reverberates between her hips, settles low in her gut. She springs away from Gwyn like she’s recoiling from a burn and bolts upright, stumbling backwards.

“You’re sweaty,” is what falls from her mouth. “Gods, it’s hot, I’m going for a swim, to—get the witcher sweat off me.”

Gwyn lifts her head, looking sleep-rumpled. Her eyes narrow.

“Be right back,” blurts Jaskier. “Enjoy your—” She gestures vaguely. “Sweat.” _What?_

Jaskier cuts a direct line through the forest to the stream. When she can no longer see Gwyn’s shape in the distance, she thunks down on the bank. She spreads her legs, bare feet slapping into the water, and plunges a hand down her breeches.

Her body blazes. She rubs her swollen clit in circles, frenzied with the knowledge that she’d pressed the same touch into Gwyn only minutes earlier, used the same fingertips that bring her, now, to a shuddering wreck. Her legs seize in a ripple from calves to thighs. A thin, high sound slides from her throat. She curls two fingers inside, grinding against her palm. 

The thought of Gwyn’s hands—the sinking stretch of them, crooked perfectly with Gwyn’s effortless competence—winds her tight. She bites down on a moan, teeth in her lip, and comes, hips snapping in a shivering arch.

The white-hot pleasure fuzzes and fades. She pulls her fingers out, frowning at the gush over her hand. Before the inevitable guilt can claw her stomach, she undresses, stomps into the water, and collapses under the surface. 

The current weaves through her hair, over her ears. Its cool whisper drowns the sharp-edged doubts in the corners of her mind.

—

Another winter is stirring from its sleep. The season yawns, stretches, grays the sky with its first hesitant breaths.

High in the north of Kaedwen, the morning chill is almost bearable. Frigid gales twine between cottages, coiling around Jaskier’s fur-lined cloak, but the ambient temperature is only just cold enough to redden noses. Chickens fluff themselves against the wind, ambling over squares of brown farmland.

Ard Carraigh is a great mist-wreathed gloom in the distance, less than a day’s travel away. The city’s rocky walls blend with the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Beyond the walls, the horizon rises in jagged peaks. Somewhere in those mountains, in the spiked spine of the world, the witchers’ keep waits. 

Jaskier draws her cloak tighter. 

Ard Carraigh is the last true bastion of civilization on the path to Kaer Morhen. She means to journey there, buy extravagant amounts of food and alcohol with coin she shouldn’t spend, and see her witcher off in the morning. Gwyn does not acknowledge this tradition; Gwyn doesn’t acknowledge their imminent parting at all, even when they are able to plan for it.

Gwyn rides as Geralt now, a hooded shadow atop Roach. They walk along the wagon-rutted road, drawing curious stares and sideways glances.

Jaskier chats idly, because it tends to humanize Gwyn in the eyes of others, and because externalizing her thoughts prevents her from drowning in them. “Do you remember that spiced whiskey, served hot, the kind we had in Cidaris?” she says. “It might’ve been Skelligan, but I’m almost certain that we were in Cidaris. Anyway, I miss it.”

“We were in Cidaris,” agrees Gwyn.

“Thank you ever so much for confirming,” says Jaskier. “You’ve mastered the art of contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion.”

“You talk plenty, regardless,” says Gwyn.

“And my back aches horribly from carrying all our conversations by myself.”

Gwyn pauses. “I liked the whiskey.”

“From Cidaris?” asks Jaskier, deliberately inane.

“Yes,” says Gwyn, eyes creasing with the hint of a smile, “from Cidaris.”

The little clusters of cottages become more frequent, increasing in density as they approach the city. So, too, do the signs of life—between the sparse fields, villagers lug bundles of wood, piling them near the swung-open doors of an empty barn. People rush past with crates of apples, or hazelnuts, or liquor.

A woman strides into the center of the road, directly in Roach’s path. She plants her feet. “Witcher.”

“Pardon us,” says Jaskier, pasting on a smile. “We’re just passing through.”

She ignores Jaskier with the practiced ease of someone who has raised many children. “I’m speaking to you, White Wolf.”

Gwyn doesn’t lower her hood, but she acknowledges the woman with a curt nod.

“I’ve a job for you,” she says. “A simple one. Well within your means, if the stories are true.”

“And they are,” interjects Jaskier. The woman shoots her a glare.

“‘Round this time, last year, a lad went missing,” she continues. “Not a week before he was due to be married. The border between this world and the next will grow thin tonight, Witcher, and I fear his spirit will return.”

Gwyn and Jaskier exchange a look.

“Was a body ever recovered?” asks Gwyn, blandly.

“No—there never was a proper burial,” says the woman. “None of these fools are prepared. They act as if Saovine is just another day for feasting and drinking, but they’re in danger, I swear it.” The hands at her hips flex once, pulling nervous creases in her dress.

“Saovine!” says Jaskier. “Is that today? So easy to lose track of time when you’re on the road—”

“What would you have me do?” interrupts Gwyn.

“If you could stand guard at the festival tonight, it’d do much to ease my mind.” A trace of concern breaks her hard expression.

Gwyn tilts her head. “Fifty ducats.” 

The price is a pittance, but the woman blanches. “I haven’t—I can offer a room, and food for you both. A place at the celebration, so long as you keep your wits about you.”

“Honestly, Geralt, there are worse ways to spend a night,” says Jaskier, eyeing a villager hauling jugs of something amber towards the barn. “I’ll pay you myself, even.”

And she does, rolling her eyes as she drops coins into Gwyn’s expectant palm, after stabling Roach and dumping their packs in the woman’s spare room. It’s still much less than she intended to spend in Ard Carraigh, and the payment is more symbolic than anything—they exchange money so often that the amounts become meaningless, just part of a larger pool for supplies or lodging.

Gwyn sits at the foot of the bed, leather folded in her lap, adjusting the clasp of a pauldron. Jaskier tosses a tangle of clothes on the opposite bed, digging for something festive.

“Listen,” she says, wriggling into a clean tunic, “It’ll be great, you’ll have nothing to do, I’ll just keep sneaking you mugs of whatever they pass around—we’re on the same page, here, yeah? The lady’s nice, but completely paranoid.”

“She is,” says Gwyn.

“Is Saovine a big event in Kaedwen?” Jaskier wonders. “You don’t hear much about it, west of Mahakam.”

Gwyn shrugs. Satisfied with the pauldron, she sets it aside, buckling the chestplate around her torso.

“Oh, right,” says Jaskier, forcing a stubborn button. “I don’t suppose that’s the kind of thing they taught you in Kaer Morhen.”

“Holidays are a human concern,” grumbles Gwyn, securing the last pieces of armor.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” mutters Jaskier.

She glances up, seeing Gwyn’s furrowed brow, and only then does she process her own words.

“I mean,” she says, fumbling, “you’re a human, too, just a... subspecies?” She winces. “Nope, wrong word. Definitely the wrong word.”

What she means is: it hurts, every time, when Gwyn severs herself from humanity, stepping outside the reach of sympathy. She denies herself the comfort of kinship, even Jaskier’s, though they share a small glimmer of the same otherness. It’s expressed differently—experienced differently—but it grows from the same roots.

Gwyn’s jaw tightens. “It’s not far from the truth.”

“Gwyn,” says Jaskier, trying to smother her sorrow with humor. “I’ve known you too long to fall for that drivel about witchers being heartless mutants. You’re far too annoying to be anything but human.”

“A necessary delusion,” says Gwyn, “to fuel your songs.” She stands mechanically, makes for the door.

“I—” Jaskier swallows her half-formed rebuttal. “I’ll see you at the bonfire, then?”

Gwyn grunts an affirmation before she leaves.

Jaskier tunes her lute to fill the ensuing silence. Best to let Gwyn’s stubborn streaks dry out on their own. She strangles the sentiment that thrashes in her chest, determined not to spoil their last night together before the long slog of winter. Maybe there will be a pretty farmhand to sponge up her overflow of emotion—but as soon as the whim strikes her, it sours.

Shouts of laughter and rumbling conversation lead Jaskier to the open barn. The bonfire is lit, its column of smoke fluctuating in the fickle wind, stinging her eyes one moment and gone the next. Children shriek and sprint between the legs of beleaguered adults, clutching flaking pastries in their grubby fists. The gray sky surrenders to a rust-colored sunset.

Jaskier swipes two cups at random. She finds Gwyn leaning against the side of the barn, skirting the edge of the festivities, just close enough to be a plausible guard.

“I don’t think it’s warm Skelligan whiskey,” says Jaskier, offering a cup.

Gwyn’s nostrils flare. “It’s not,” she says, but she accepts the gift. “Some kind of blackberry hooch.”

“Wait, really?” says Jaskier. Then, after a sip: “Oh, _wow_. That sure is—something. Remind me never to doubt your nose.”

Gwyn’s hood is down—a rarity, in public. Her hair hangs loose, falling asymmetrically over one cheek, and her rounded pupils compensate for the dimming dusk. The look almost softens her, save for the faint white lines over her cheekbone, the knotted pink whorls on her neck. Her skin describes every variety of scar.

“No lute,” observes Gwyn.

“Must’ve forgot it,” lies Jaskier. She’d considered bringing it, but she didn’t want the surge of a crowd to separate them. Not tonight. “I’ll come back around with dinner, yeah? Don’t have too much fun without me.”

Jaskier spends the evening this way, flitting between the festival—the lanterns and revelry and sparking bonfire—and Gwyn, in her oasis of shadow. She sneaks hand pies and mugs of cider to Gwyn, staying until the ache under her sternum sharpens, and she’s forced to dull it with the blithe merriment of strangers.

The night drifts down, burying the the world in velvet blue, broken only by the golden flare of the fire. Jaskier returns to Gwyn. Her eyes reflect the low light with a wolflike beam. 

Jaskier presents Gwyn with an apple. “Peel this,” she demands, “but keep the peel all in one piece.”

Gwyn raises a brow.

“You can do it! I know you’ve got _so_ many knives,” insists Jaskier.

“How many drinks did they push on you?” asks Gwyn.

“That’s not relevant,” says Jaskier, coy. In truth, she’s only had a few, but she has a sudden craving for plausible deniability. “Peel.”

Gwyn tugs a small dagger from her boot. She takes the apple, peels it with swift twists.

“Good,” says Jaskier. “Now throw it over your shoulder.”

Gwyn sighs through her nose. She tosses the peel. It slaps against the barn and collapses in a sad heap on the grass.

“Oh,” says Jaskier. “I should’ve specified to not—assault the barn with fruit scraps. It’s meant to lay out flat, kind of.”

“What is this, Jaskier?” asks Gwyn, exasperated.

“The peel’s supposed to fall in the shape of a letter,” says Jaskier. “And that letter’s supposed to be the first initial of your future spouse. The lovely folks in the barn told me so.” She squints at the ground. “I guess it could be an O, or something?”

“Hm.” Gwyn crunches into the apple.

“Oh, ew.” Jaskier fights an inexplicable swell of affection. “Wasn’t that knife in your shoe?”

Gwyn nods. “Used it to kill a nekker last week.”

“Amazing.” Jaskier leans against the barn, parallel to Gwyn. “Thank you for humoring me, anyway.”

“You brought me food,” says Gwyn, a gruff excuse.

“Yes, what a terrible burden for me to shoulder,” says Jaskier. “I just—I like the funny little rituals. The things we use to make sense of the vast, uncaring world. The way that—what’s with your face? Does your boot-apple taste funny?”

Gwyn gives the apple a last appraisal before pitching it into the grass. “You’re rambling.”

“Well, yeah,” says Jaskier. No point in denying it.

“You do that,” says Gwyn, “when you’re avoiding something.”

Jaskier’s heart jolts. She masks her shock by peering around the corner of the barn, investigating the cheers and stomps that mingle with the sound of snapping firewood. Pairs of villagers twirl around the bonfire in drunk, meandering circles.

She doesn’t covet their company, but she does envy their careless glee. 

Her hands itch.

“I love avoiding! Let’s avoid things,” says Jaskier, reaching back to tug on Gwyn’s sleeve. “Come with me, just for a bit.”

“Jaskier,” says Gwyn, pronouncing the name like a warning.

Jaskier turns, assembling an argument in her head, and freezes. Gwyn had stepped closer; her movement brings them chest to chest. Close enough to touch, to count scars, to share breath.

The moment feels liminal, liquid and unshaped. Time wavers as it ticks forward. 

“Come now, noble guard,” teases Jaskier. The closeness and the firelight give her a dizzy confidence. “You can step away from your post.”

Gwyn’s glimmers of expression are too quick to read. Her gold-rimmed silhouette dominates Jaskier’s vision.

“We both know,” Jaskier says, breathless and low, “there are no monsters here.”

Gwyn sways down. Silver strands trail over Jaskier’s shoulder.

An agonized scream shreds the night.

Gwyn’s sword squeals against its scabbard, drawn at blinding speed. She falls backwards into a stable stance. More shrieks join the first, building a fearful clamor. The world flashes, glazed with shimmering orange light—Gwyn’s free hand is bent into the sign of Quen, deployed on instinct.

Gwyn drops the shielding spell. “Get inside the barn,” she says, a harsh command.

Jaskier’s chest sears with a strange impression of loss.

She forces her quivering legs to move, stumbling around the corner and into the barn. The building is large, but the villagers crowd inside, a teeming mass of panic and inebriation. Jaskier shoves to the front just as a pair of men slam the wide double doors.

“Fuck,” she says, “fuck, fuck, _fuck_.” She scrabbles against the planks. Unholy wails leak through the walls. She finds a loose board, jostling it just enough to see outside.

“Miss,” someone says, clapping a hand on her shoulder, “it’s not safe—”

“Choke on my proverbial cock, you twice-cursed whoreson,” she snaps, gaze fixed to the hole in the door. The hand retreats, accompanied by muttered curses.

A black shape whirls, circling the bonfire. For a nonsensical second, Jaskier thinks that her witcher is dancing.

The fire is wrong. Something withered and translucent floats between tongues of flame. A ring of runes flashes, and the angry blaze rises, violet and orange boiling together into an incandescent white. Glints of silver slash the flames. Skeletal contours weave in and out of solidity.

There’s a growing hubbub behind her, voices jumping into frantic octaves. “Don’t you dare die,” hisses Jaskier, ripping away from the door with reluctance. She turns to find the source of the new panic.

There’s a clutter of villagers off to the side, forming a cramped semicircle against the wall. They tremble, invoking the names of gods both familiar and unfamiliar. Jaskier strides over. They part for her, revealing the woman who hired Gwyn—clutching a bloody slash on her shoulder, shaking, crying silent, stoic tears.

“Lena,” croons one of the women, “hush, Lena, it’s alright.”

It’s clearly not.

“For fuck’s sake,” says Jaskier. “Someone give me their bonnet, _now_.”

A villager presses linen in her outstretched hand. She crouches next to Lena, wrapping the cloth in a tight knot over the wound. It stains red, but the makeshift bandage holds.

“Tell me what happened,” she says, as Lena’s breath hitches with pain.

Lena’s answer is distant, buoyed on currents of fear. “Was watchin’ the fire,” she slurs. “And it _came_ , it came like I said it would.” She grips the charm of her necklace. It’s something tied with rough twine, hidden in her white-knuckled fist.

A guttural roar rattles the barn, echoing unnaturally. 

“Well,” says Jaskier, distracted, “you’ll probably live.” She stands, races to the door again, and presses her face to the gap. 

Outside, a dark figure leaps into the pyre.

Her instinct is to scream, to howl something totally unhelpful and brimming with anguish. She subdues the urge. A needle of pain pierces her finger—a splinter, from gripping the wood. She takes the sliver between her teeth and pulls, eyes locked to the fire and her foolish, fearless witcher.

The writhing specter stiffens, a gleam protruding from its ribcage. Another scream erupts, pulsating, ringing high in the air.

The fire climbs, seething. Finally, the flames fall.

Before the scream fades, Jaskier’s ramming a shoulder into the doors. “Let me _out_ , you goat-fucking morons!”

There are a few scandalized murmurs, but someone lifts a latch, and Jaskier sprints into the dark. A few small, empty bottles glitter in the grass. Gwyn is hunched near the base of the bonfire, sides heaving, shrouded in the smell of blood and smoke. Her skin ripples with rapidly healing burns.

Inky eyes dart up, ringed by bruise-colored green. Branching black veins web over pale skin. She’s never seen Gwyn so toxic before—then again, launching face-first into a fire is a special circumstance.

“Oh, Gwyn,” sighs Jaskier, hiding the name under her breath. Relief shudders down her spine. She approaches with hesitant steps. “Can I help?”

Gwyn’s head jerks, angled like a bird’s. Without the help of pupils, it takes a beat for Jaskier to notice that Gwyn is staring at her bloodied hands.

“It’s not mine,” assures Jaskier. “Our employer’s, I’m afraid. But she’s safe.”

Villagers start to mill around, spilling out of the barn. Confused voices overlap with the sound of Gwyn’s panting.

“Witcher,” calls Lena, pushing through the crowd. “I was right, Witcher, it was—”

Faster than a blink, Gwyn stands upright, looming over Lena like a stormcloud.

“What,” she growls, “is _this_.” A thin snap, and Gwyn’s holding Lena’s necklace. The charm dangles—bone-white, some kind of inexpert scrimshaw.

Lena staggers back. “A token,” she gasps, “for luck, I—I needed to protect myself—”

Gwyn brings it to her nose, inhales. She grips the bone charm and crushes it in her fist.

“Don’t interfere with forces you don’t understand,” snarls Gwyn. She scatters the shards in the bonfire and stalks away, heading for Lena’s home.

Lena limps in a different direction, shivering, supported on a friend’s arm. But the villagers pursue Gwyn. They bark questions, demanding explanations. Some jeer at her retreating back.

“Leave off, all of you!” says Jaskier, projecting with a singer’s clarity. She runs ahead to block the procession. “Geralt of Rivia saved all your lives. You should be groveling at his feet!”

A woman steps forward—one of the few who had comforted Lena in the barn. She holds Jaskier’s gaze for a moment, eyes flicking to her red-smeared hands. Her back stiffens, and she turns around, standing with Jaskier against the crowd.

“Alright, everyone,” the woman says. “Let it rest.”

A few more villagers join her side. The jeers recede, and the mob disperses. A knot loosens in Jaskier’s gut.

She jogs to catch up with Gwyn. “Hello, darling,” she says, hoarse.

Gwyn’s black eyes narrow, and she speeds her pace, trailed by the acrid scent of burnt hair. Her armor is scuffed with ash. 

“Have you reached the nonverbal stage of elixir poisoning?” asks Jaskier, struggling to match Gwyn’s stride. “What do you need? Do you need me to shut up, or—”

They’re closing in on Lena’s cottage. Jaskier reaches out, unthinkingly, maybe to brush a speck of char from Gwyn’s arm, or to clap a comforting hand on her shoulder, a physical anchor to help combat the potion high. Her hand never connects. The world blurs, there’s an impact against her back, and suddenly she’s pressed to the door of the cottage, held there by Gwyn’s iron grip on her shoulders.

The adrenaline cooling in her blood flares back to life.

“Hey there, Gwyn,” she whispers.

Gwyn leans into the crook of Jaskier’s neck. She draws in a long, unsteady breath, leather creaking with her expanding chest. Her exhale warms Jaskier’s skin. It sets her heart pounding, frees a flood of scalding arousal.

Gwyn’s mouth grazes Jaskier’s neck. 

Jaskier shivers.

Gwyn’s hands clench in Jaskier’s tunic, and she kisses over Jaskier’s neck, her jaw, meeting her lips in a messy, toothed slide. Jaskier digs her fingers into the singed silver of Gwyn’s hair, dragging her closer. Her mind floats somewhere out of reach, all thought incinerated in a flash of fierce, stunned joy.

Gwyn pulls back. Their lips part with a slick sound. She looks stricken, deep creases carved around her mouth and brow. 

Jaskier’s punch-drunk grin fades. “Gwyn?” 

Gwyn huffs, dips forward, and catches herself before backing away completely. She pushes Jaskier aside, retreating into the cottage.

All the doubts crash back into Jaskier’s brain. She chases Gwyn inside, nerves firing in a rapid, queasy flicker. “These are some _extremely_ mixed messages you’re sending,” she says, skidding into the spare room.

Gwyn’s tearing her armor off. Puffs of ash rise when each piece hits the floor. It doesn’t look like a sexy kind of stripping, judging by the aggression in each tug, or the harsh bend of her fingers. She reaches under her shirt to undo the binder. The fabric comes free, and she whacks it to the ground with enough force to kill a small animal.

“Are you—can you talk to me?” says Jaskier. She steps in a careful radius around Gwyn, sits gently on the bed that’s still covered in discarded clothes.

“The potions,” grunts Gwyn. “Too much at once.” Her coal-black eyes twitch wide as she paces in restless circles.

Her obvious distress cuts Jaskier, stings like a wound. “Do you want me to leave?” 

She licks her lips, tasting smoke.

“No,” says Gwyn.

“Do you—do you want me to stay?” asks Jaskier, faltering.

Gwyn diverges from her well-worn circle. She stops in front of Jaskier, staring down.

“I want,” she says, then interrupts herself with a growl.

“Gwyn,” says Jaskier, throat thick with worry. She puts a hand on Gwyn’s forearm. “Come down here. Please.”

Gwyn sinks to her knees. Jaskier smooths her hair, running fingers over the prickly shave. She traces placating patterns at her temples, behind her ears, at the base of her neck.

“You don’t want this,” rasps Gwyn.

“And how, pray tell, did you come to that conclusion?” asks Jaskier, slipping a hand to Gwyn’s cheek.

“You wanted Geralt,” she says, leaning into Jaskier’s palm. “Not—me, not like this.”

Jaskier traces black veins with her thumb. Gwyn’s breath tickles her wrist. It feeds the growing thing in her chest, threading roots between ribs, blooming up in her throat.

“I would have you exactly like this,” she says, heavy as a promise. “As a witcher, and a woman—more or less.”

Gwyn closes her eyes. Her shoulders droop. Jaskier leans down, brushing hair from Gwyn’s forehead. She plants a kiss there, the caustic smell of toxins and soot burning in her nose.

A deep, cracked noise breaks in the back of Gwyn’s throat. She stands, climbs over Jaskier, crowding her onto her back. Jaskier arches into a kiss, hooking her legs around Gwyn’s waist. Gwyn’s mouth is hot, and her teeth nip into Jaskier’s lip; she presses Jaskier into the mattress, a perfect weight against her hips, and she clutches under Gwyn’s shirt, desperate to feel the shift of her abs—

Gwyn seizes.

Jaskier unwinds her legs, drops flat on the bed. “Is everything alright, love?”

Gwyn tips her head down, pushed into the space beside Jaskier’s neck. She holds there, propped on her elbows, breathing. 

“I drank so much fucking Cat,” she grits. “It’s—still too much.”

Jaskier straightens Gwyn’s shirt, running a soothing touch over her arms. “As much as I am looking forward to the part where you ravish me,” she says, “it can wait.”

And it can—though she’s wet from being wound up twice in one night. _Can Gwyn smell that?_ she wonders, and the thought prompts a bolt of desire. She squeezes her thighs together, trying to bargain with her arousal.

Gwyn lowers until she’s flush against Jaskier and nestles under her jaw, knocking her dizzy.

“Darling,” she says, “if you don’t either get off me or get me off, I am maybe going to explode.”

Gwyn pushes off the bed. “Sorry,” she says, only a little smug.

A greedy part of Jaskier’s heart howls at the loss of Gwyn’s weight and warmth.

“Actually, let me take that back,” she says, and sweeps her clothes off the bed, piles of very valuable silk and soft cotton drifting to the ash-covered floor. “Maybe just—lie down here, and I’ll think very innocent, virginal thoughts.”

“Hm,” says Gwyn, sitting next to Jaskier. She bends down to tug off her boots, and the resulting stench does a lot to quell Jaskier’s need.

Fatigue creeps over her body. She blinks twice, yawns. The only thing keeping her upright must’ve been lust, which is funny, in retrospect. There’s something else—a perpetual, gentle light, warming her chest—but it cooperates with the exhaustion, humming like a lullaby.

They curl together under the covers, still reeking with smoke and blood and sweat, but Jaskier tucks herself tight into the crescent of Gwyn’s body, and it feels correct. Warmth washes over her in a heady rush, pulling her underneath consciousness and into sleep.

Jaskier wakes with a huge tree-trunk thigh slotted between her legs and an arm splayed over her hip. Gwyn’s breaths are steady, her limbs leaden. She wiggles carefully out of Gwyn’s hold. It doesn’t jostle her enough to rouse her from sleep. Her veins are invisible again, and the sickly green pallor has drained from her face.

The cottage is empty. Jaskier borrows a basin and ventures into the cold, retrieving well water, feeling oddly like a housewife. She fills their waterskins, rests the basin on the floor, and strips.

Gwyn stirs, finally, as Jaskier washes herself with a damp cloth, leaving trails of goosebumps. The water is frigid, and she sets her teeth to keep them from chattering. Gwyn’s ragged hum sinks into her skin.

“Good morning, dear,” says Jaskier. She reaches up into an indulgent stretch, appreciating Gwyn’s golden stare.

Gwyn sits up and swipes a waterskin from the side table. She drinks, wipes her mouth.

“I haven’t seen Lena yet,” says Jaskier, “so I think, by default, this is our house now. There must be some kind of law.”

Gwyn stands like something puppeted, her gaze honed on Jaskier. She takes even, automatic steps until they’re close enough to touch.

Jaskier shoves the cloth against Gwyn’s sternum. “Darling, dearest,” she says, “don’t give me that look when you still stink like a burned-down apothecary.”

“You didn’t mind it last night,” grouses Gwyn, but she takes the rag, undressing with efficient yanks.

“Yes, well, I contain multitudes,” sniffs Jaskier.

She moves to the bed, reclines against the headboard, and picks at a hangnail. Gwyn is painted in the crisp white light of the morning. The sight blends with a years-old memory of her witcher, of peeking under an armored shell and seeing the unguarded face of someone absorbed in a simple task.

Jaskier swallows. “You should know that—that I care for you, deeply. I don’t know if I made that clear, before.”

Rolling droplets cut through the grime on Gwyn’s knuckles.

“All I want,” says Jaskier, inhaling, “is to follow you, and wrap your wounds, and laugh when you make stupid faces.”

The filthy cloth plunks into the basin. Gwyn approaches, clean, bare, silver-edged, the fine hairs on her forearms and calves catching the sun.

“I want to see you,” says Jaskier. “To know you, If you’ll let me.”

“You already do,” says Gwyn, softly, like a confession.

The words shimmer and expand and Jaskier’s chest feels full, too full, like a rib might crack.

“Mm, well,” she says, casually, “this room is pretty drafty, don’t you think? Maybe you should come warm me up.”

Gwyn snorts, the corner of her lip drawn into a reluctant half-smile. “Not your best line,” she says, climbing on the bed. She settles back on her heels, bracketed between Jaskier’s legs, dragging a touch from Jaskier’s inner thigh to her ankle.

Jaskier’s mouth goes dry. “If you want to keep me quiet,” she says, “I can think of a few very fun ways—”

She’s cut off by Gwyn, leaning over to nose at her throat. “Hm,” she says, the sound vibrating into the sensitive curve of Jaskier’s neck. “No. Want to hear you.”

Jaskier makes a numb, meaningless sound, which is a little embarrassing, but she’s too occupied with the press of lips under her jaw to mind. She directs Gwyn into a kiss, using a hand coiled into her hair. The slide of their lips is languid, searching. They map each new touch to its unique outcome: a shiver, a curse, a bitten-off exhalation, or a gentle redirection—Gwyn takes Jaskier’s wandering hands and lifts them off her chest, threading their fingers together and squeezing once. Jaskier checks Gwyn’s eyes; they’re clear, steady, so she nods, and drapes her arms over Gwyn’s shoulders instead.

Jaskier rocks her hips. Hunger deepens their kisses until Gwyn rumbles and returns to Jaskier’s neck, laving her tongue down a straining tendon. The needle point of a canine skims her skin.

“Gods, _fuck_ ,” chokes Jaskier, urging Gwyn closer with the tightening vice of her legs.

Gwyn opens her mouth, and the slow, blunt burn of a bite makes Jaskier gasp. She sucks at the mark, reddening it under her tongue. As a retaliation, or a reward, Jaskier drags her nails down Gwyn’s back. Gwyn makes a noise that could charitably be called a growl—more accurately, a purr.

“You know, it’s funny,” Jaskier says, her voice coming in silly little wisps between breaths, “even when I thought you were a man, all I could think about sometimes were your fucking _hands_ —”

Gwyn skates her palms over Jaskier’s waist, stomach, hips, and Jaskier thinks she might have gotten the message, until she switches direction to Jaskier’s breasts, thumbing over her nipples.

“Ngh—was that hint not obvious enough?” says Jaskier. She pushes up into the touch anyway, chasing the sparking thrill of it, and Gwyn lowers her head, replacing one of her hands with a warm, wet mouth. “Oh, Gods preserve me.”

“Speak your mind, Jaskier,” says Gwyn, puffs of breath cooling the sheen left by her tongue.

“ _Fuck_ me, you giant, tragically sexy idiot,” she pleads.

Gwyn, mercifully, slips a hand between them, running light strokes over Jaskier’s entrance, up to her clit and back in a maddening tease. The pads of her fingers spread Jaskier’s wetness until each touch is slicked smooth.

“Gwyn,” she pants, “please, please, just—”

And Gwyn ducks down, drags the flat of her tongue over Jaskier’s clit, sinks a finger inside her. The pleasure is radiant, spine-curling, jolting through her core. Gwyn thrusts, works her tongue and lips in time with her finger, adds another to appease Jaskier’s desperate, groaned demands. "Just—fuck, just like that, like that, _please_.” She kicks her heels into Gwyn’s back, unable to stop the spasms, and grips Gwyn’s hair like she’s in danger of floating away.

Gwyn takes measured breaths through her nose, keeping her mouth sealed over Jaskier’s clit. She fucks faster, relentless, and Jaskier is caught squirming between the pressure of her tongue and her hand, and the sensation flares, threatening to ignite the fast-spreading need that consumes her. “Don’t stop,” she gasps, “Gods, Gwyn, so good, so perfect for me—”

Then Gwyn moans, muffled between her legs, and she’s thrown, shaking, over the edge. 

Gwyn licks through Jaskier’s first shudders, then nips at Jaskier’s thigh. Her thrusts slow, and Jaskier keens, convulsing around Gwyn’s thick fingers. She slumps onto the bed, sprawling. Gwyn sits back, half-lidded, and tastes her soaked fingers.

Jaskier crosses her legs. The flush on her face spills to her ears. Gwyn, dazed, licking drips of Jaskier off her hand—it’s too much to process post-orgasm. “Gods above and below, Gwyn, give a girl some _warning_.”

Gwyn smiles, unrepentant. She climbs over Jaskier, kisses her with a rapt, peaceful focus. Her mouth and chin shine with slick, carrying the salt-metallic taste of—of herself, Jaskier realizes.

Jaskier breaks the kiss with a quick peck. “Alright, darling, what would you like? I could return the favor.” She leers down at Gwyn’s muscled thighs, picturing her head between them.

Gwyn brings Jaskier’s knuckles to her lips. “I’m satisfied,” she says, a raw edge in her breath, and kisses Jaskier’s hand. “Another time.”

Something vulnerable lurks in her face—a dark shape, distorted under her skin. Jaskier’s heart clenches.

“Gwyn,” says Jaskier, running her free hand over Gwyn’s sweaty forehead. “You don’t have to promise me anything. I meant it, yesterday, and I mean it today—I’ll have you as you are. Any way you want.”

Gwyn’s brow relaxes. The darkness wicks away. She lies on her side, wrapping Jaskier in her arms. 

Jaskier’s nose brushes Gwyn’s collarbone. She folds around Gwyn, splaying her hands on Gwyn’s shoulderblades, over the long gnarl of a scar. Their bodies guard a tiny shared space, warmed by their breath.

The creeping chill trickles through the floorboards, a stubborn reminder of their looming separation. They leave the bed, eventually, to stuff supplies into packs, pull on layers of clothes and heavy cloaks. Jaskier steals selfish touches, swats at Gwyn playfully when she does the same.

The sky is iron-gray, dusted with the season’s first snowflakes, soft and broad like chunks of fleece. Roach blows a resentful snort at the weather, resisting Gwyn’s pull on the reins until Jaskier bribes her out of the stable with a leftover apple.

They travel until the path forks: the well-worn road to Ard Carraigh, dotted with wagons and shivering foot traffic, or the trail into the foothills, swallowed up by evergreens.

Gwyn lowers her hood. She halts Roach, staring up at the mountains. The wind whips her hair into a wild silver tangle.

“I could stay,” she says.

And starve on winter’s scraps, and freeze in frigid forests, and cage herself in the torture of a city. “I won’t ask that of you,” says Jaskier, though the offer thaws her chest, sweetening the muted grief that haunts every one of their departures. 

Jaskier huddles deeper into her cloak, thinking of the heat shared between bodies.

“We’ll find each other again, come spring,” she says, reassuring herself. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Witcher.”

Gwyn smiles, shakes her head. She ducks into her hood, kicks her heels, and rides until her silhouette dissolves into the distant pines.

**Author's Note:**

> Geralt's gender journey, in order of events:
> 
> 1\. Geralt is hinted at having some AFAB features through discussion of facial structure.
> 
> 2\. Jaskier hits on Geralt, and is rejected. Her advances make Geralt a little distressed, though the implication is that it's because Geralt can't return her affection without revealing a hidden identity.
> 
> 3\. Geralt is revealed to have a somewhat androgynous voice that is usually disguised on purpose.
> 
> 4\. Jaskier sleeps with a stranger who genders Geralt as a woman.
> 
> 5\. A doppler mocks Geralt for being a "freak" (because of gender nonconformity, though this is not explicitly stated).
> 
> 6\. Geralt sustains an injury that reveals a binder underneath clothes.
> 
> From that point on, Geralt uses a different name and she/her pronouns. There are some minor allusions to dysphoria.


End file.
